


Scavengers

by cuttothequickk



Series: All Things Bright and Beautiful [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, Light Angst, M/M, Oblivious Kageyama Tobio, Past Relationship(s), Recovery, Slow Burn, past emotional abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 05:25:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13495806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuttothequickk/pseuds/cuttothequickk
Summary: In which Hinata falls off his bike, uses way too many kaomojis in his text messages, keeps secrets until he can't, spends a lot of time under Kageyama's kotatsu, loses some things and gains some others, and learns how to feel again, at least a little.That's what Kageyama sees, anyways.





	Scavengers

**Author's Note:**

> Additional trigger warnings for: descriptions of past abuse, internalized victim blaming, emotional/psychological abuse and manipulation, and light self-blame/self-disgust.
> 
> Physical abuse and descriptions of violence are not present in this story, but emotional abuse is still abuse, so please keep these tags in mind if you choose to proceed.

Kageyama is just reaching the top of the stairs leading out of the train station when he hears the yelp. It’s not very loud, the sound muted by the mid-January snow blanketing the ground. It has just passed evening into nighttime now, and Sendai is quiet for a Friday night, probably because of the still-falling snow and the subzero temperatures that have been plaguing the city for the past four days. The sky is that cloudy pink-orange of a gentle evening snowfall, the large flakes slow on their descent towards the layer of snow already covering the ground. It isn’t deep, but if it snows all night, it will be.

 

Apparently, some dumbass had thought it would be a good idea to ride a bike in this weather despite the slick layer of snow lining the sidewalk, because across the street Kageyama can see a bicycle frame lying on its side, the front wheel still spinning. There’s a person lying prone in the snow, and at least they’re safely on the sidewalk, Kageyama thinks, instead of hanging off the curb into the street the way the bike is. He scoffs to himself at the sight until he realizes the person isn’t moving to stand up, and, well, Kageyama might be an asshole in general but he’s not the kind to just ignore someone who’s actually hurt and in need of help.

 

“Hey,” he calls, glancing both ways down the empty street before he steps into a light jog across to where the person is sprawled out one the ground. “You okay?” The snow mutes his voice just the way it had muted the little cry, which Kageyama realizes must have come from the person when he or she crashed. As he approaches, he can see that it’s someone small, a teenager or maybe just a girl, and Kageyama is standing over the person before they can respond to his inquiry.

 

It’s a face he never expected to see again.

 

“ _Hinata?_ ”

 

There’s his bright orange hair, his bright brown eyes, and his bright heart-shaped smile. Everything about him is bright, even against the glowing white snow. Kageyama feels his heart beat hard at the sight, so hard he’s afraid his ribs will crack.

 

“Wha— _Kageyama?_ ” Hinata goes from lying prone to leaping three feet into the air so fast that Kageyama feels like he’s experiencing some sort of time skip. There’s a maroon beanie lying in the snow where it’s fallen off Hinata’s head, and he’s bundled in a puffy gray coat and jeans, his white Converse obviously soaked. Kageyama feels like all the wind has been knocked out of him even though he’s not the one who’s just fallen off his bike.

 

“Kageyama! You look so _tall!_ ” Hinata chirps.

 

Kageyama’s brow furrows. “It’s been three years since we’ve seen each other and you’re commenting on my height?” Kageyama asks, his cheeks heating, and then his brain catches up to his eyes and his face twists into a scowl. “Dumbass, why were you riding your bike in the snow?”

 

Hinata grins so wide it looks like his face will split in two. “I missed you so much!” He looks like he’s about to launch himself at Kageyama and Kageyama braces himself for impact, but it doesn’t come. Instead, Hinata takes a breath and leans back on his heels as if he has to physically force himself out of the beginnings of a motion he would otherwise automatically complete, and Kageyama feels a sudden sense of disorientation. When had Hinata become so—well, maybe not _so_ , but at least _more_ —self-possessed?

 

“What are you doing in Sendai?” Kageyama asks instead of returning Hinata’s sentiment. Hinata doesn’t seem bothered.

 

“I live here! What are _you_ doing in Sendai?”

 

Kageyama rolls his eyes. “Dumbass, I live here too. Why else would I be here?”

 

Hinata’s eyes light up even brighter than they’d looked before. “You live here and I live here and we didn’t know it?”

 

“I thought you were still in Tokyo.”

 

Hinata’s eyes darken, his mouth tilting into a wistful smile. “Ah, Tokyo was great and all, and I miss Kenma a lot, but…I missed my mom and Natsu, and I missed Tsukishima and Tadashi-kun, and so, I don’t know. I only came back up north about six months ago, but I’ve been around ever since. I can’t believe we’re only just now seeing each other!”

 

In the time he’s been talking, Hinata has picked up his bike and is examining it. The chain has popped off, probably because the bike has to be at least ten years old with the way the blue paint is chipped and faded, the lettering on the side entirely obscured by rust.

 

“Is that the same bike you rode in high school?”

 

Hinata looks up at him from where he’s maneuvering the chain with a grace that suggests he’s had to do this before. “Yeah, my mom never got rid of it so when I moved up here from Tokyo, I went and got it from her. The chain works as long as I don’t pedal too fast, but I guess the snow was just too much for it to handle.” He moves the bike forward a little in a strange jerking motion and the chain pops into place. “The annoying part is that I always get the same bruise,” he goes on, and Kageyama realizes he’s forgotten how much Hinata can talk.

 

“The same bruise?” Kageyama asks.

 

“Yeah, it’s always on one knee or the other. The bike jerks in this certain way when the chain pops, and it slams my knee up into the handlebars. I’d show you, but I mean,” he says, gesturing down to his jeans.

 

Kageyama leans down and retrieves the beanie from the snow. He has a sudden urge to fit it onto Hinata’s head himself, but he aborts the motion before it can start and holds the beanie out instead. Hinata grins and takes it, rambling on about the bike and the bruise and the weather while Kageyama spaces out the way he always used to when Hinata would start spouting off the entire contents of his head. The familiarity of the scene tugs some old, forgotten emotion through Kageyama’s chest, and he feels strangely warm and content despite the chill in the air.

 

Hinata’s monologue dies down after a few minutes, and Kageyama feels a jolt of panic at the realization that there’s no reason for this interaction to go on any longer. He wracks his brain for something to say before Hinata walks away, but there’s too much he wants to ask for and too little he has to offer in return. Hinata is right there in front of him, but Kageyama can’t get back something that’s already been lost.

 

Kageyama blurts, “So are you going to keep riding home now?”

 

“What are you talking about? _Of course_ we have to go get dinner or something! Or you could come to my house if you haven’t eaten. I was going to make nabe since it’s so cold!”

 

Kageyama’s eyes widen. Of the two of them, Hinata has always been the brave one. Staring down into Hinata’s eyes, the same bright eyes that always begged him for tosses during high school, makes him feel like no time has passed at all. His chest aches and flutters at the thought, and Kageyama wonders how they ever fell out of touch. It had seemed so easy, somehow, for them to let go of each other, so easy that they didn’t even mean to do it. Everyday updates about post-high school life had turned to weekly summaries, and then once-a-month hellos, and then the occasional conversation with a mutual friend wherein the other had come up, and then…nothing. Kageyama hadn’t even noticed himself losing anything at the time, but now that Hinata is right here in front of him, he feels the loss as if it’s happening all at once. Like his partner is just _gone_ , the person in front of him the same and yet not.

 

“I haven’t eaten,” Kageyama says, and Hinata’s grin turns boxy with how wide it is.

 

“Great! You like nabe, right? Oh, did you eat ozoni for New Year’s? My mom made the best ozoni, and she made mochi just on its own too, and it was _so good!_ ” Hinata starts walking his bike along and Kageyama just starts following him the way he used to trail after Hinata when they’d walk home from school together. While they walk, Hinata babbles on about his mother and Natsu and Tsukishima and Yamaguchi and how he’d even seen Oikawa recently, _can you believe it, Kageyama? AND HE WAS KISSING IWAIZUMI! RIGHT IN PUBLIC! OUTSIDE OF STARBUCKS!_

Kageyama cannot believe that. Although, now that he’s 23 and an actual adult, he finds that maybe he can. Oikawa has always had a flair for the dramatic, so it’s no wonder he’s an exhibitionist. And Iwaizumi—well, Kageyama has never really known him all that well, but he guesses Aoba Johsai’s ex-ace must just have terrible taste.

 

They make it to Hinata’s apartment pretty quickly. It’s not that far from Kageyama’s, but then Sendai isn’t exactly a big place.

 

“Why did you move to Sendai instead of staying in Tokyo?” Kageyama asks, standing awkwardly outside Hinata’s kitchen while Hinata scurries around gathering ingredients and trying to find the wooden spoon he wants.

 

Hinata shrugs, still digging through a cabinet. “I could get a job here. I mean, I double-majored in marketing and sports medicine, and those are both really competitive job markets in Tokyo. But Kenma had Kuroo talk to some of his connections for me—it was really, really nice of him to do that, you know? Especially because…well, I mean, you know,” Hinata says, looking at Kageyama like Kageyama does know, and—well, he totally doesn’t.

 

“What?” Kageyama asks, right as Hinata is about to keep going, and Hinata’s nose scrunches up in confusion the way it always has, and Kageyama feels like if he doesn’t get a grip on the difference between past and present, he’s going to go crazy.

 

“What?” Hinata asks, tilting his head. He looks like a curious little bird.

 

Kageyama shakes his head. “What am I supposed to know?”

 

Hinata’s head tilts even more. “I—I mean, Kenma is still my friend, if you didn’t know that, like, he wasn’t mad or anything, and—well, like I was saying, he didn’t think twice before asking Kuroo to talk to people for me, which was totally chill of Kuroo too, obviously, because I mean he isn’t mad either, and—”

 

“Why would they be mad?”

 

Hinata stops. Like, completely. As in, he is frozen on the floor crouched next to his cupboard with the correct spoon finally in his hand, his eyes locked on Kageyama. “Because Kenma and I dated? But now Kenma is with Kuroo? I know you have no feelings, _Bakageyama_ , but other people _do_ tend to be a little weird about their boyfriend being friends with an ex.”

 

“You dated Kenma? When?” Kageyama asks, because this is absolutely the first time he’s ever heard of this.

 

Hinata bursts out laughing.

 

Kageyama waits him out, scowl growing deeper with every passing guffaw.

 

Finally, Hinata pulls it together. “You really didn’t know? I thought it was so obvious, I mean, even _Tsukishima_ knew, and he’s practically oblivious to everything because he’s always busy making moon-eyes at Tadashi-kun—get it, _moon_ -eyes, because his name is _Tsuki_ shima, like the moon, like—”

 

“Tsukishima was into Yamaguchi?”

 

Hinata laughs even harder. He is literally lying on his kitchen floor laughing his ass off. Kageyama thinks about walking out.

 

“Kageyama, they’ve been living together since we started college!”

 

“Yeah, because they’re roommates.”

 

“Oh my god, you are either extremely homophobic or extremely _dumb_.”

 

“Well, definitely the latter,” Kageyama says, and _that_ of all things makes Hinata stop.

 

“Good,” he says. “I was suddenly worried maybe you were mad I dated Kenma. Because Kenma and I are both guys.”

 

Kageyama doesn’t stop frowning. He _is_ a little bit frustrated about that, but not for the reason Hinata is implying. “I’m not mad at you for dating Kenma. I just didn’t know, is all.”

 

Hinata nods, grabs the spoon, and finally stands. “Right, so anyways, Kuroo was really chill about it and talked to some volleyball connections, and voila! I have a job up here now! I’m at a small physical therapy clinic, you know the one down by the park at City Hall?”

 

Kageyama nods. A few of the students he coaches at the university have gone there after various practice injuries.

 

“I do kind of a mix of odd jobs there, really. I mean, I majored in sports medicine, but I didn’t actually go to medical school or anything, so I just get to help out with stuff that doesn’t require, like, an M.D. or whatever. But it’s still really fun! And some of the patients play volleyball, so I get to talk about it at work sometimes!”

 

“They’re probably some of mine. The students I coach, I mean.”

 

Hinata gestures at Kageyama and makes a few random sound effects until Kageyama realizes Hinata wants him to chop vegetables. “You coach?” Hinata asks once Kageyama is chopping up the cabbage.

 

Kageyama nods. “Yeah, at the university. I’m just an assistant coach, but I get to keep playing. I couldn’t—I couldn’t go pro after I broke my wrist during my last game my senior year. It was—bad,” he finishes lamely. Looks down at his right wrist. Scowls at it.

 

Hinata is looking up at him with big doe eyes, and Kageyama swallows hard.

 

“I’m sorry, Kageyama,” he says. It doesn’t sound fake.

 

“What about you?” Kageyama asks instead of responding to the sympathy, and Hinata shakes his head and turns back to his chopping.

 

“Come on, _Bakayama._ I’m, like, barely tall enough to pass for an adult. No pro team was going to want that,” he says. He’s smiling when he says it, though, and Kageyama realizes Hinata has made peace with not having been able to go pro, maybe more so than Kageyama has. “Besides,” Hinata goes on, “Volleyball was fun because of all of you. In college…I don’t know, my team just wasn’t the way it was at Karasuno. I had Kenma, but college volleyball was hard for him because he didn’t have his real team either. He and I dated right at the start, like I said, but he was always going to end up with Kuroo. I think we all three knew that, which was why we’re all still okay with each other…but. I don’t know. I guess I realized that it was the people who made volleyball what it was. You know?”

 

Kageyama nods. He does know. He’s not sentimental, or at least he doesn’t think of himself as being that way, but Hinata has a point. Volleyball isn’t fun without a team the way a team should be. The way the team at Karasuno was.

 

“So here you are,” Kageyama says, feeling something in him soften at the way Hinata nods at him and smiles.

 

“Here I am,” Hinata agrees.

 

It’s easy enough after that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hinata pulls out the first bottle of sake while the nabe cooks. They finish it before the soup is even finished, though, and when Hinata offers up more, Kageyama can’t find it in him to refuse. By the end of their dinner he’s reasonably tipsy and they keep drinking while the do the dishes to make doing the dishes more fun (definitely a tipsy-bordering-on-drunk Hinata’s idea) before Hinata claims that they’ve reached The Turning Point.

 

“We can either get really, really, drunk,” he says, “Or we have to stop drinking now,” he says, swaying a little and giving himself away as more of a lightweight than he’d wanted to admit at the beginning of the evening. “Otherwise we’ll end up in that really weird in-between place where you feel bad all night but you’re never really trashed and you’re never really sober.”

 

Kageyama looks between Hinata and the bottle of sake on the counter, and he thinks, what the hell.

 

“You think you can hold your liquor as well as I can, dumbass?” The insult-turned-endearment comes out so naturally that it sends a little shiver down Kageyama’s spine.

 

Hinata’s face absolutely _shines_. “You’re on, Bakageyama _._ ”

 

They get really, _really_ drunk.

 

“Ka—Kageyama, you—really didn’t—know I was—dating Kenma?” Hinata asks, rolling his head from where it’s resting against the top of the kotatsu so he can look sideways at Kageyama. He’s hiccupping the whole time he’s talking.

 

Kageyama shrugs and the world feels like it moves with the motion of his shoulders. Is that supposed to be something that happens? “When were you dating him again?”

 

“Beginning of college,” Hinata says with another little hiccup. “When I first went to Tokyo. You even came to visit. You and I were hanging out _with Kenma_ ,” Hinata says, flailing his arms around and knocking over one of the empty bottles of sake sitting on the table. They both giggle.

 

“Is that why Kenma was there?” Kageyama asks, and now that he’s thinking about it, it _was_ kind of weird that Hinata had brought Kenma along on their—well, it wasn’t a date. It obviously wasn’t a date considering _Hinata’s boyfriend had been there_ , and Kageyama feels retroactively dumb knowing his three-years-younger self had been thinking—hoping even—that just maybe it was kind of a date.

 

Hinata giggles. “Kenma doesn’t like public displays of affection or else it would’ve been a lot more obvious. That’s part of why he and I didn’t work,” Hinata says, his expression serious like he’s just solved world peace or something.

 

“Because you like public displays of affection and he doesn’t?”

 

Hinata nods sagely. “PDA is hard for Kenma. Lots of things are hard for Kenma. I think it’s because he’s, like, super smart. I didn’t always know what was hard and stuff. But Kuroo knows all the important Kenma information because they’ve been best friends for so long. And he understands it all even though he doesn’t need things to be the way Kenma needs them to be.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

Hinata looks exasperated. “Kenma likes to have things a certain way all the time. Like, he doesn’t like certain types of tags, and he loves feeling this particular texture of paperback book cover. And he doesn’t like loud noises, and he has to sleep with a fan. There’s more, too. It makes it easier for his head to work the way he wants it to. And I promise, I always wanted to help him however I could, but—Kuroo just knows so much better. Kuroo has always known, like, since they were _three._ That’s _so many years,_ Kageyama. _Years and years and years_ of making sure Kenma’s world is the right way for Kenma. It’s beautiful,” Hinata says, and starts crying.

 

“Why are you crying?”

 

“Because it’s beautiful!” Hinata wails.

 

Kageyama frowns the hardest he’s ever frowned, maybe, but maybe he’s just drunk. “So you miss Kenma then?”

 

Hinata stops wailing. “Yeah. I mean, as a friend, though. Because he lives far away from me. Kenma and I had a lot of fun in the two months we dated, but—it was two months. And we broke up really amicably. It was, like, no big deal. And I’m so glad I got to lose my virginity to him because—” Hinata cuts off so sharply that Kageyama thinks maybe he’s so drunk he’s somehow gone deaf, and that’s why all the sound is gone.

 

“Hinata?” Kageyama asks. Hinata isn’t looking at him. “Oi, dumbass?”

 

Hinata looks over as if he’s forgotten Kageyama is even there. “Oh, sorry, what were we talking about?”

 

“About how you lost your virginity to Kenma?”

 

Hinata nods, all serious again. “Oh, right. Because Kenma is very nice and cute. That’s why.”

 

“That’s nice,” Kageyama says back, his drunk brain thinking that yes, it really is very nice. Better than the one night stand that had served as his first sexual experience, at least.

 

There’s silence for a while, and then Hinata yawns. “You wanna watch a movie? You can stay here tonight if you want. It’s probably still snowing outside, and you’re like, _super_ drunk, Kageyama.”

 

“What? You’re way more drunk than I am, dumbass!”

 

“Am not!”

 

“Are so!”

 

Hinata sticks out his tongue. “Do you want to stay or not?” He asks after he’s completed the gesture.

 

Kageyama frowns, evaluates his level of drunkness. Yeah, he is way too drunk to get home. “Okay, I’ll stay. What movie are we watching?”

 

They get into a fight about that, too, but Kageyama feels warmth swelling in his chest. He and Hinata have known each other for almost a decade. They haven’t seen each other in three years, haven’t been proper friends for longer than that. Since they went off to college, maybe. But nothing feels like it’s changed, Kageyama thinks.

 

Kageyama is wrong.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They spend the first half of the movie criticizing it and then shushing each other, and then Hinata falls silent, his eyes drooping with exhaustion and too much alcohol. By the time the movie is over, he’s sleeping under the kotatsu, his left leg pressed along Kageyama’s right. Hinata looks adorably small, and Kageyama wonders how many people have seen Hinata this way. He thinks it’s not very many, but there’s no way to be sure, and Kageyama isn’t going to wake him up and ask. He’s honored, in a drunkenly sentimental way, that Hinata is apparently comfortable enough with him to let his guard down like this, even if Hinata _is_ pretty drunk. Kageyama is still drunk too, so drunk that when he tries to stand up, he only manages to fall over into the cushions behind them.

 

“Fuck it,” he mumbles, “I’m sleeping here.”

 

Hinata doesn’t react.

 

Kageyama passes out and then wakes up feeling like he hasn’t slept at all, because he never sleeps right when he’s been drinking. Hinata is still passed out next to him, so still and pale that Kageyama actually checks to make sure he’s breathing, which of course he is. It feels like there’s a never-ending explosion happening behind Kageyama’s eyelids, and he grumbles a little bit and tries not to throw up. He’s surprised by how successful he is.

 

There’s a bottle of painkillers in the bathroom, and Kageyama takes three even though it’s over the recommended dosage. Drinking water helps, and he’s even able to get some rice going in the rice cooker so that he and Hinata can have eggs and rice for breakfast once Hinata wakes up.

 

It doesn’t take long until Hinata rolls over to groan his discontent. “Fuck, Bakageyama, why did you let me do that,” he whines, sitting up only enough to fall face-first into the top of the table.

 

Kageyama collapses next to him. “I didn’t do anything. You did all that yourself. And then you just up and fell asleep anyways. Didn’t even say goodnight,” Kageyama says in mock anger. He remembers the little twinge of happiness from the night before at seeing Hinata asleep beside him, totally relaxed.

 

Kageyama is not expecting Hinata to blanch the way he does, the color draining immediately from his cheeks as he opens his mouth and then closes it again. For a second, Kageyama thinks he’s going to puke, but then Hinata starts speaking, or, really, apologizing?

 

“I’m sorry, oh shit, Kageyama, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t—fuck, I’m _so sorry,_ ” he says, sounding way more upset than he should. He seems almost frightened, but maybe Kageyama has just lost the ability to read Hinata the way he could by the end of high school, because he must be wrong. There’s no way Hinata would be frightened by anything that’s happened, right?

 

“It’s fine,” Kageyama says, forcefully, because Hinata is _still apologizing_ while Kageyama has this little moment of confusion.

 

“I was just so drunk,” Hinata says. “I shouldn’t have gotten so drunk.”

 

Kageyama huffs a laugh. “Yeah, we probably both should’ve thought about that one, really,” he says, joking. But Hinata keeps looking nervous for a few seconds before he finally cracks into a forced smile.

 

“Yeah, sorry. I didn’t—I’m really hungover right now,” he says, running a hand through his hair. He sounds and looks different somehow, all of sudden less like himself, in a way that twists Kageyama’s stomach into knots.

 

Kageyama swallows. “I’ll make eggs and rice if you can eat,” he offers, flat, because everything feels wrong in the air all of a sudden. Not like something he did was wrong, or like it was something Hinata did. Just. Something is off.

 

Hinata looks weird, like he can feel it too, but he nods. “Okay, thanks,” he says. And then he looks at where his phone is lying face down on the table and flips it over fast, the screen lighting up because of the change in position. “Sorry,” he says, again, looking kind of lost. Kageyama genuinely has no idea what he’s apologizing for.

 

He makes rice and eggs and they both eat it, and it’s quiet the whole time, like they’re remembering the way they used to communicate so well without words back in high school, both on the court and off.

 

After breakfast, Kageyama leaves. But as he’s slipping into his shoes and heading out the door, he finds the courage to ask, “Can we hang out again sometime?”

 

Hinata smiles, and it’s not his most brilliant one, but it does look genuine. “Okay. I’d like that.”

 

Kageyama nods once, and then he heads home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ thnks for the rice and eggs today!!!! they rly helped my hangover （⌒▽⌒）

 

 _KageyamaT:_ glad I could help

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ it was rly good to see u even if u r kind ofa dick

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ what r you doing this weeknd???

 

 _KageyamaT:_ you type really inconsistently

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ srry!!!!!!!!

 

 _KageyamaT:_ it’s fine

 _KageyamaT:_ and I’m not doing anything

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ let’s hangout!! we can’t play volleyball outside bc of the snow but we can go to the rec center gym or smthng!!!!

 

 _KageyamaT:_ how many exclamations marks can you include in one message before your phone explodes

 _KageyamaT:_ ok

 

 

Kageyama stares at his phone for a few long seconds, but Hinata doesn’t respond. He sets his phone down next to his pillow and runs a hand over his face, a sigh escaping him. He’s not sure what he’s doing, really, getting involved with Hinata again—not _involved,_ involved, obviously, but just. He’s not sure. It’s been a long time since Kageyama has felt so out of his depth.

 

Then again, it’s probably because he’s become such a creature of habit in the past few years that he’s had no reason or desire to go out of his comfort zone. He goes to work, and he honestly does enjoy it. He cooks, he cleans, he visits his parents. He sometimes even sees Tsukishima, if they’re both bored enough and annoyed enough to slum it in each other’s company for a few rounds of drinks. Come to think of it, those times have always happened when Tsukishima has mentioned Yamaguchi being gone on a business trip for his job as an editor, so maybe that’s why Tsukishima has been occasionally interested in Kageyama’s attention over the past few years: his boyfriend had been gone for a few days, and Tsukishima had been lonely.

 

He’s just about to text Hinata exactly that, not even thinking about how much that sort of a text message is the kind of thing best friends send each other when they’re bored, when Hinata responds.

 

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ ((´д｀))  I don’t kno I tried like 500 !!! and it didn’t explode srs to-chan

 

 _KageyamaT:_ to-chan?

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ like tobio

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ obviously

 

 

Kageyama frowns at his phone. There’s something flirtatious in Hinata’s tone, definitely, but…there’s no way. Right? They can’t just meet up out of pure luck and pick up where they’d left off when they’d left high school. And Hinata had dated Kenma, like, right after they’d graduated, so maybe there had never been anything there in high school at all; maybe Kageyama had been the only one staring overlong at his partner when they were on the court, or blushing hard during lunch when Hinata would steal food off Kageyama’s plate like it was something he was allowed to do. It’s not like Kageyama had actually said anything after the third or fourth time it had happened.

 

Maybe that was because he’d been too busy blushing.

 

Anyways.

 

 

 _KageyamaT:_ whatever

 

 

He hesitates. Thinks of Hinata asleep beneath the kotatsu that very morning.

 

 

 _KageyamaT:_ shou-chan

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ （*´▽｀*）

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ gnight Kageyama!!!! see u this Saturday! 1pm sharp at the train station, don’t b late!!!!

 

 _KageyamaT:_ goodnight

 _KageyamaT:_ sleep well

 

 

Kageyama almost sends another “Shou-chan”, but he’s already blushing so hard he thinks he might turn into a tomato if he doesn’t stop. He lifts himself off of his bed and goes to brush his teeth, forcing himself not to take his phone to the bathroom with him. Hinata is already in bed, obviously. They’ve already said goodnight. It’s stupid to hope he’ll send anything else.

 

But when Kageyama gets back from brushing his teeth, he has one new message.

 

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ （　＾ω＾）

 

 

Kageyama feels his lips quirk into almost a smile. As close to a smile as his face can come, probably.

 

He bites his lip and shoves his phone under his pillow. It still takes way too long for the butterflies in his stomach to calm down so he can sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The week passes too slowly. Kageyama runs errands on Sunday and resists the urge to text Hinata, who hasn’t messaged him since that last kaomoji the night before. On Monday, the university is closed because of the unreasonable amount of snow that has piled up over the weekend, so Kageyama spends the day at home, catching up on paperwork and trying to ignore the fact that his phone exists and could be used to text Hinata _right this very moment._ Tuesday through Thursday are normal; practice resumes and Kageyama handles all his administrative duties with the awkward courtesy he forces from himself when needs must. By Friday, Kageyama has convinced himself he doesn’t care that Hinata hasn’t texted him. They’ve only just rediscovered each other. There’s no reason they should message as much as they did when they were in high school—not that it was a lot, per se, but it was more than Kageyama had ever texted anyone else.

 

Then finally, it’s Saturday.

 

Kageyama doesn’t know what to wear.

 

It’s such a _stupid problem._ Like, the kind of problem that is _not even a problem_ , and he shouldn’t be thinking about it. Of course Hinata doesn’t care what Kageyama’s wearing. Hinata probably won’t even _notice_ what Kageyama is wearing.

 

Except. Well. Now Kageyama knows for sure that Hinata is into boys, or at least was into Kenma, and although Kageyama doesn’t have the bleached hair or the calm, indifferent personality of Nekoma’s ex-setter, he’s pretty sure Hinata was into him. At least a little. Kageyama sorts through his memories of Hinata in high school and finds himself questioning the tone of every one. Was there something there when they hit their quick the first time? After the match they lost again Aoba Johsai? When they got into that fight in the gym? When they finally resolved the lingering tension from their fight in the gym?

 

There are so many moments Kageyama can go over, even after that whirlwind of a first year; he can remember whispers under the covers of their futons at training camp after everyone else had fallen asleep, and there were those times on the bus when the moonlight flickered in just right and Hinata would look up at him with this starry-eyed expression to offer a smile before falling asleep on Kageyama’s shoulder as if by accident. Teenage Kageyama had always chalked that particular habit up to exhaustion, had even written his own thumping heartbeat as just some weird teenage hormone thing, but now—now he’s rethinking all of that.

 

And he still has nothing to wear.

 

 

 _KageyamaT:_ Tsukishima how do you decide what to wear on a date

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ Why the hell are you asking me?

 

 _KageyamaT:_ shut up

 _KageyamaT:_ what do you wear when you go on dates with yamaguchi

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ I’ve known Yamaguchi since we were ten. He doesn’t care what I wear.

 

 _KageyamaT:_ fine. bye.

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ With whom are you going on a date?

 

 

Kageyama rolls his eyes at the “whom”.

 

 

 _KageyamaT:_ shut up

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ You texted me. If you didn’t want to get my input, why bother?

 

 _KageyamaT:_ shut up. I shouldn’t have

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ Fine. What are you doing on the date?

 

 

Kageyama finds himself blushing. It feels like if he says they’re playing volleyball, it’ll be terribly obvious.

 

Tsukishima sends another message before Kageyama can respond.

 

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ And how did you know I go on dates with Yamaguchi?

 

 _KageyamaT:_ I thought everyone knew

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ You didn’t, though, because you’re oblivious to everything and you always have been.

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ Oh.

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ You saw Hinata, didn’t you? He’s the person with whom you’re going on this date.

 

 _KageyamaT:_ fuck

 _KageyamaT:_ shut up

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ Just wear normal clothing. Hinata has seen you at your worst many times and he still wants to date you, for some reason.

 

 _KageyamaT:_ it’s not really a date

 _KageyamaT:_ we’re just playing volleyball today

 _KageyamaT:_ we ran into each other last friday

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ You’re playing volleyball on your date? Cute.

 

 _KageyamaT:_ shut up I’m sorry I ever involved you

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ Yeah, so am I.

 

 

Kageyama rolls his eyes and doesn’t respond.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s just before 1:00 when Kageyama trudges up to the station, his gym bag slung over his shoulder with a change of clothes and some shampoo—not because he’s expecting they’re going to—well— _anyways,_ he just figures maybe they’ll go out for drinks or dinner afterwards, and he doesn’t want to be all sweaty. Because of volleyball.

 

Hinata runs up a few minutes late, of course, and Kageyama greets him with an awkward little wave, his arm made stiff by the puffy coat keeping him from freezing to death in the still-subzero temperature. Hinata is spilling hurried apologies and looking almost frantic, and Kageyama rolls his eyes at the display. Hinata looks good, as good as he had the previous weekend, or maybe even better, because his cheeks are all red from the cold and there’s a scarf wrapped around his neck that Kageyama recognizes, because—

 

“Is that my scarf?” Kageyama blurts before he can even offer a greeting, and he’s mentally kicking himself when Hinata beams.

 

“Yes! I can’t believe you remember it! You hardly seemed to notice when I stole it from you after that one training camp!”

 

Kageyama blushes. He had definitely noticed…he just hadn’t done anything about it. Not because Hinata had looked— _still looks—_ so adorably cozy with the soft black wool wrapped around him.

 

Hinata quirks a grin, his eyes glinting like he knows what Kageyama is thinking, but he doesn’t say anything as they walk into the station. It’s only one stop from the center of town to the rec center, the walk easy and enjoyable on a good day, but the train is faster, and the snow had started falling again early in the morning.

 

“How was your week?” Kageyama asks, voice gruff.

 

Hinata flashes a smile. “Great! Natsu came to visit last Sunday—she can _drive_ now, can you believe it? And then I hung out with some coworkers on Wednesday night. We always go to the same izakaya, and they have these _amazing_ little potato cheese ball things, and the owner knows I love them so as soon as we walked in he had the guys in the kitchen start making them, and he knows the beer I like, too! And we always get the same things and it’s all just _amazing_ , and—oh! Kageyama, I’m sorry! I should have invited you along!”

 

Hinata is looking up at Kageyama with this look of earnest devastation, and Kageyama is taken aback. His cheeks heat up, and he ducks his head as they swipe their cards and start down the stairs towards the platform. “It’s fine,” he says, because really, it is. He’s not sure what he would’ve done if Hinata had texted him midweek with an offer to join what is obviously a long-standing after-work tradition with Hinata’s coworkers, his _friends._

 

“Oh, but we go every week! So you can just come next week! If you want, of course,” Hinata goes on, smiling.

 

The train arrives, loud and screeching, and Kageyama is glad for the distraction so he can breathe a minute and hope his thumping heart calms down. _It’s not a date it’s not a date it’s not a—_

 

They get on the train and Hinata is still looking up at him, waiting.

 

“Yeah, all right,” Kageyama says, voice low and gruff, almost sounding like he doesn’t really want to go and is only agreeing out of obligation, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Guilt floods his chest because Hinata’s going to hear how much it sounds like he doesn’t want to go, and—

 

“Okay! Great! That’ll be awesome!” Hinata tilts his head to the side and lets his eyes close with how big he’s smiling, his shoulders shrugging up a little so he looks like some overly cute character from a shoujo manga.

 

“I want to go,” Kageyama blurts anyway, just to make sure Hinata knows.

 

Hinata opens his eyes. “I know,” he says, apparently still able to read Kageyama’s terrible communication skills even after all this time. It makes Kageyama want to lean in and press a kiss to Hinata’s cheek. Not even his _lips,_ for god’s sake. His _cheek._

 

Yeah, Kageyama thinks, he’s totally fucked.

 

“Anyways, what did you do this week, Kageyama?”

 

And Kageyama—well, he normally gives a bullshit answer to this question, on the rare occasion that anyone _asks_ him this question, but Hinata looks so genuinely interested with his big eyes and his affectionate smile that Kageyama responds honestly.

 

“Not a lot. Just work, and stuff. We didn’t have practice on Monday because of the snow, but otherwise I just. I don’t know. Did…work…stuff,” he finishes lamely.

 

Hinata’s grin sharpens. “So I’m the most important part of your week then, right?”

 

And for a second Kageyama thinks he means all the waiting around for Hinata to text him, the absolute _pining_ he did over his phone the whole week. He’s sure Hinata has figured it out. But then the train is slowing and Hinata is jumping and cheering “Volleyball! Volleyball!”, and Kageyama realizes that Hinata probably means this hangout-which-is-not-a-date.

 

Well, whatever Hinata thinks, he’s right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Playing volleyball with Hinata again is, for lack of a better word, a throwback. Hinata, as it turns out, does not notice what Kageyama is wearing, which is to be expected, considering it’s black Adidas track bottoms and his practice jersey from college.

 

“You think we should start with some regular spikes and work our way up to the quick?” Hinata asks before they even get started, like the possibility of them no longer being capable of performing their signature freak quick has never crossed his mind. Kageyama is sure Hinata can still spike whatever toss Kageyama gives him, because it’s not like either one of them is really out of practice—Kageyama still plays every day at least a little bit, and it’s been less than a year since either one of them was playing on their college teams.

 

But the quick—the first one, the one where Hinata had his eyes closed because he trusted Kageyama so totally—what if they can’t do it? Kageyama finds himself indulging the self-doubt as they enter the court, even as Hinata leaps across the floor and whoops like he’s never been so excited to be somewhere, but then maybe he hasn’t. Every moment is like the _most intense moment_ when Hinata is around, his boundless energy saturating the whole world into vivid color in a way nothing else can.

 

“I bet we could just do it,” Hinata is saying, and then “Remember that time that you were all like _bwah!_ And then I was like _whoosh!_ And it was like, _fwoop-pah!_ And Oikawa was like _aghh!_ ”

 

Kageyama does actually know the exact time he is talking about.

 

“Let’s at least warm up, dumbass,” Kageyama says as Hinata continues leaping around and spouting off poorly articulated memories of their best moments. Seeing Hinata on the court like this, still so small and full of energy, has something in Kageyama’s chest aching a strange mixture of loss and anticipation, like he’s empty and full at the same time, paralyzed by regret and at the same time stunned into catharsis.

 

Hinata stops leaping and meets Kageyama’s eyes, and there’s a flicker there that tells Kageyama that Hinata feels it too.

 

They don’t speak for a while after that, instead stretching out on the gym floor and stealing glances at each other like they’re both not sure the other is really there.

 

Their first few practice spikes are technically perfect, but they lack any of the awe-factor that their spikes had held in high school. They are running through motions they have each done a thousand times, a million maybe, and so of course they will not mess them up. But there is no sense of accomplishment with it, because their success is so rote and expected.

 

It feels like something is swelling in Kageyama’s throat when their fourth toss and spike results in another dissatisfying smack of the ball against the floor, Hinata’s shoulders slumping as he lands and stands still in front of the net.

 

“This was a bad idea,” he says, quietly, his voice for once small enough to match his tiny frame.

 

Kageyama stares at the back of Hinata’s neck, praying the shorter will say something else that will somehow make this moment better. Hinata stays quiet, and when he turns to face Kageyama, his eyes look glassier than they should.

 

 _Fuck._ “Hey, maybe—maybe we didn’t need a warmup,” Kageyama says, weirdly desperate all of a sudden. “Let’s just try the quick.” His voice is escaping him in a rush, and Kageyama prays he doesn’t sound as frantic as he feels.

 

Hinata meets his eyes like he’s surprised Kageyama has spoken at all, and—yeah. That makes sense. Because teenage Kageyama never would’ve made a suggestion like that, never would’ve gone out of his way to make Hinata feel better. Even a minute ago, he was standing there waiting for Hinata to make bad things better. But he’s 23 now, and he’s old enough to swallow his stubbornness and help someone else. It means something to him, he realizes. It means something, and he needs to not fuck it up with his social ineptness.

 

“What if it just makes it worse,” Hinata muses, but he’s getting ready as he says it, and Kageyama knows that fear has never deterred Hinata Shouyou from doing anything before, at least nothing volleyball-related, so of course Hinata is willing to try it. And—more importantly—there’s the fact that Hinata was even willing to voice such a vague and disappointed sentiment out in the open between them, expecting Kageyama to understand what he meant (he does) and to feel it too ( _of course_ he does). Hinata still trusts him.

 

Kageyama takes a breath and sets the ball Hinata tosses him. Tosses it quick, to the exact spot he knows it needs to go, and Hinata—

 

Hinata has his eyes closed, and he’s spiking the ball with all the force a few extra years of training can muster in his muscled but still tiny arm, and it’s sailing over the net and hitting the floor with a loud _smack_ that sounds somehow _so, so different_ and _so, so much better_ from the few spikes they’d performed before. Hinata hits the floor with a choked laugh and whirls around to Kageyama, an expression equal parts surprise and relief painted across his beautiful cheeks, like he’s the most grateful he’s ever been for anything in his entire life.

 

Kageyama kisses him.

 

It’s rougher than he meant it to be, a little too impulsive, but Hinata is responding with a toss of his arms around Kageyama’s shoulders, and Kageyama is wrapping his hands firm against Hinata’s ribs and lifting him up to spin him around, and they go stumbling into the pole holding the net up and break apart with a mutual laugh, the noise echoing around the empty gym so their joy sounds even louder and bigger than it can sound with only the range of human vocal cords to produce it, and then Hinata is kissing him again and Kageyama’s heart _soars_.

 

“I’ve been waiting for that since high school,” Hinata says when they break apart to catch their breath, and Kageyama shuts his eyes against the onslaught of feelings that produces.

 

“Me too,” he manages, still gasping, and Hinata lights up even brighter, if that’s possible.

 

“Since the first time we did that,” he says, looking pointedly at the ball, and Kageyama blushes.

 

But he’s not surprised that Hinata caught on to what was to come before he did. Hinata’s always one step ahead of him, and he is honored to have the privilege of following along.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After they finish playing volleyball, their faces flushed mostly from exertion but also from the glances they’d been stealing at each other the entire time they’d been playing, they go to Kageyama’s. It’s partly because it’s slightly ( _slightly_ ) closer to the train station than Hinata’s is, but it’s mostly because Hinata had asked, and Kageyama has no reason not to oblige him. It’s snowing again, the flakes big but not too violent yet, and Kageyama thinks Hinata seems a little nervous for a second as they enter his apartment. But then they’re busy shaking off their coats and removing their shoes, and Hinata is acting normal so Kageyama thinks he probably was just imagining things.

 

For dinner they eat yakisoba because it’s warm and it doesn’t take too long, and then they sit under the kotatsu and put on a stupid game show and try to answer the questions before the contestants can.

 

By the time they’ve gotten nine in a row wrong, Hinata sets his bowl down with a clatter and throws his hands up.

 

“Dammit! Tsukishima would probably be getting all of these right!”

 

Kageyama nods. “Yes, he would.”

 

Hinata turns to look at him. “Kageyama! We have to get better at this! We can’t let Tsukishima show us up!”

 

“Tsukishima’s not even here.”

 

“Well then, I bet I can answer more questions right than you—”

 

“ _Dumbass,_ we’re both not getting any of the right so why—”

 

“You’re just scared because you know I’m gonna win—”

 

“ _You are not going to win—_ ”

 

“ _Bakayama—_ ”

 

Kageyama snarls and throws his bowl down to tug Hinata into another kiss, the first they’ve shared since their excited but tame not-quite-make-out at the rec center earlier. This time they’re sitting next to each other, and it’s easy to push Hinata backwards onto the cushions of the low sofa-bed next to the wall, to wrestle their legs out from under the kotatsu, to align their bodies flush so that they’re all pressed together and warm with the contact, their mouths moving furiously and then slowing until every press of tongue is long and lasting.

 

Hinata is letting out tiny groans and responding enthusiastically, but he isn’t urging things forward, either. Kageyama isn’t a dick, and he doesn’t want to push things further than Hinata wants them to go, so after they’ve made out like horny teenagers for a while without Hinata making any move to progress things, Kageyama pulls away.

 

Hinata is flushed beneath him, his hair a mess where it’s been rubbing against the cushions. His eyes are a little dazed, his expression spacey, and Kageyama has to swallow hard to keep himself from spilling words that will be way too much, way too soon.

 

“Hinata? You okay?” Kageyama asks instead, and Hinata’s blown-black gaze fixes on him so that Kageyama can see Hinata’s brain struggling to get back online.

 

“Sorry,” he says, “Did you want to—” Hinata cuts himself off looking a little unsure, and Kageyama furrows his brow in genuine confusion. He hopes he doesn’t look angry.

 

“Did I want to what?”

 

Hinata’s blush darkens. “You know…like…” He looks off to the side, and Kageyama pulls back a little farther.

 

“Have sex?” It’s blunt, but it should speed things along so Kageyama can stop being confused by Hinata’s sudden reticence.

 

“Oh, I’m just—a little sore—from earlier, I mean, so—so maybe—”

 

“Hinata, you can just say you don’t have to have sex with me.” Kageyama is confused. The Hinata he remembers wasn’t shy about calling Kageyama out when he was wrong, and open communication about sexual proceedings—or the lack of desire for such activities—is something Kageyama will never compromise on.

 

But Hinata _does_ look confused. “No, I know,” he says, “Sorry.” Why is he apologizing? “I just—it’s not that I don’t _want_ to, it’s just—”

 

Kageyama frowns. “You don’t have to want to. I’m having fun just making out with you. Or just hanging out with you, if you want to stop making out. I just wasn’t sure if you wanted to go further. It didn’t seem like you did.”

 

Hinata looks rueful. “You could tell?”

 

 _Rueful._ Like he feels _bad_ that he doesn’t want to go further, and that Kageyama had picked up on it.

 

“Sex is only on the table if everyone wants to do it,” he says, blunt. “I thought you were having fun with the making out, but you didn’t push it further, so I’m not going to either. Obviously.”

 

Hinata bites his lip and looks away. Not for the first time, Kageyama feels like he’s maybe missing something important.

 

“No, of course not,” Hinata says, nodding. “I know.”

 

“Are you actually sore from earlier?” Kageyama asks, pretty sure he knows the real answer, and pretty sure Hinata will lie.

 

“No,” Hinata says, though, and—well, it’s not a lie. Kageyama isn’t sure how to feel about that. Hinata goes on, “No, I just—I didn’t want you to leave because you thought I wasn’t into you or something. Because I am—into you, I mean.”

 

“Would you have had sex with me if I wanted to? Even if you didn’t want to?”

 

Hinata colors. “No, of course not,” he says. It seems like he’s just saying what Kageyama wants to hear, and Kageyama frowns, but he doesn’t call him on it. It hurts to think that Hinata has so little faith in Kageyama as a decent human being that he would think something like not wanting to have sex would ruin a perfectly good not-date-turned-kind-of-actually-a-date. It hurts more to wonder what made Hinata believe that possibility in the first place.

 

Hinata studies Kageyama’s expression and then relents. “Okay, I—if it were really important to you, I think…”

 

Kageyama cups Hinata’s face in his hands. “Hinata Shouyou. _Dumbass._ Let’s continue hanging out, and let’s not have sex.”

 

Hinata’s eyes widen and his breathing is quick, but there’s a smile tugging at his lips. “Okay,” he says, his voice careful and guarded.

 

They turn back to the TV, and Hinata picks up his phone awkwardly from where it’s resting face up on the table. He sets it back down that way, too, carefully rotating it so it’s never facedown. Then he sighs something that sounds like frustration and flips the phone over onto its front, and when he checks the time later, the motion is smooth the way it should be, even when he hesitates a second before setting it back down on its face. It’s easier to pick up your phone when it’s facedown. Everyone knows that. So why is Hinata being so weird about the whole thing?

 

Kageyama is sure that Hinata doesn’t notice Kageyama’s awareness of the strange tick, and Kageyama doesn’t ask about it.

 

But there’s something wrong, Kageyama knows. He’s going to have to figure out what.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s nearing ten p.m. when Hinata finally stands up to go home. Kageyama wishes Hinata would stay and is about to say something, offer a spare futon or even a spot in his bed, when he remembers the way Hinata had acted earlier about the sex thing. He finds himself wondering if Hinata wanted to come to Kageyama’s apartment so that he could leave at any time, an easy escape that wouldn’t involve throwing his not-date out of his apartment, or being forced to offer Kageyama a place to sleep when Hinata didn’t want to. It’s weird to be so uncertain of what Hinata wants; while they had gotten pretty good at reading each other in high school, they’re out of practice, and Kageyama feels like he can’t trust Hinata’s claims about his own needs or desires anymore.

 

“Well, goodnight, Kageyama,” Hinata says, bundling up into his coat and boots and hat and scarf and gloves. He looks kind of like a rainbow marshmallow with all the puffy layers in a host of colors, and Kageyama wants to kiss him, but he decides to let Hinata come to him, if he wants to.

 

And sure enough, Hinata is stepping up on his toes and pressing a delicate kiss to Kageyama’s lips, just a soft press that makes Kageyama’s heart pound and do a little leap in his chest, and he grabs Hinata’s gloved hands in his and squeezes them tight.

 

“You sure you’ll be okay walking home?” He asks. It’s late, even if it’s not really dark because of all the streetlights reflecting the snow and painting the world in a bright orange glow.

 

Hinata nods. “I’ve lived in places this snowy my whole life, aside from those couple of years in Tokyo,” Hinata laughs. “I think I know how to walk through a few centimeters of snow.”

 

Kageyama nods. “Yeah, you’ll be fine,” he says, a fond little snort escaping him.

 

Hinata smiles, neither of them letting go of their clasped hands. “So, do you want to hang out again?”

 

Kageyama nods. “Yes,” he says. He could drag Hinata back inside right now and hang out with him forever, he thinks, if Hinata would let him. But he has a feeling that if he asked that, Hinata would just let him do it, even if it weren’t what Hinata wanted.

 

Hinata gives a little smile, his tongue poking out between his teeth, and—Kageyama had forgotten how he looked when he did that, the motion so automatic that Kageyama isn’t sure Hinata even knows his tongue is doing it. “Goodnight, Kageyama. Thanks for—everything,” he finishes, looking like he wants to say something else.

 

Kageyama nods. “Let me know when you get home,” he says, because it’s what you say.

 

Hinata tenses a little and nods, his face gone—well, not _dark_ exactly, but just—Kageyama can’t even describe the flickered expression on his face, but it stirs something like worry in his gut. “Yeah,” Hinata says. “I will.”

 

 _You don’t have to,_ Kageyama almost says, but—that feels like it’ll make things even weirder, so he decides to just leave it. He’s kind of at a loss. But Hinata interrupts his worry with a final kiss and then a sigh as he pulls his hands back.

 

“Goodnight,” Kageyama says.

 

“See you soon,” Hinata responds. And then he turns away from Kageyama’s apartment and walks down the hall, disappearing into the stairwell.

 

Kageyama shuts the door and leans back against it, trying to push away the feeling that something is really wrong. But Hinata texts him a scant fifteen minutes later to say he’s home, and there’s even a kaomoji with it, so Kageyama hopes that even if something is going weird, it’s something that isn't insurmountable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 _KageyamaT:_ does Yamaguchi ever do stuff he doesn’t want to do because you want to

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ He can occasionally be persuaded to watch documentaries with me even though he wants to watch superhero movies. Why?

 

 _KageyamaT:_ ok good to k nowth anks

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ You should pay more attention to what you’re typing. It’s bad manners to send such ill-composed texts.

 

 _KageyamaT:_ fuck you

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ Do you actually need something? Go away.

 

 _KageyamaT:_ bye

 

 

Kageyama isn’t surprised that Tsukishima is no more help on this than he ever is on anything, especially because they’re not _really_ friends. Kageyama doesn’t have friends. Although, Kageyama realizes, Tsukishima is the closest he comes to having one. Kageyama isn’t unpopular at work, and he’s on good terms with a lot of the university’s faculty and staff, but—well, he isn’t going to ask any of them about whether he should be concerned that the guy he really wants to date apologizes too much _._ As the days pass after their not-date-date- _whatever_ , Kageyama finds himself questioning whether he’s just being crazy in even thinking about this. It’s ridiculous to be mad at someone for being too nice, right?

 

Kageyama’s phone goes off, surprising him out of his thoughts.

 

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ Is there something going on that I should be concerned about?

 

 _KageyamaT:_ no. it’s fine

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ Okay.

 

 

At least Tsukishima won’t press, the way someone else would. But who else would Kageyama talk to about his concerns? Hinata is the only person who comes to mind as someone Kageyama would willingly confide in, but since he’s the root of the problem, maybe…

 

Maybe it would be best to just talk to him directly, Kageyama realizes. He’s seen plenty of romantic movies with his mom, and he knows that usually those plots are centered on people miscommunicating or just not communicating at all.

 

Confident in his decision, Kageyama texts Hinata.

 

 

 _KageyamaT:_ hey, you wanna hang out on Wednesday after the izakaya thing? if you still want me to come to that

 

 

He receives a response right away.

 

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ hi!!! yeah!!! movies at ur place????

 

 

The quickness of the response makes Kageyama believe Hinata’s enthusiasm is genuine, and Kageyama feels some of the worry in him ease.

 

 

 _KageyamaT:_ sure. you pick the movie

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ o(^▽^)o

 

 

Kageyama bites his lip. It’s almost like he wants to smile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Wednesday afternoon, Hinata texts him the address of the izakaya they’re going to, and when he pushes open the door at the time Hinata had given, Hinata and his coworkers are in the back of the restaurant, laughing and eating little round gold things with cheese on top of them—the potato cheese balls, then. They look really good.

 

“Kageyama!” Hinata yells and offers an enthusiastic wave, as if Kageyama’s eyes hadn’t gone straight to the brilliance of Hinata’s orange hair and wide smile the second he’d walked through the door. The staff call out a welcome as Kageyama slips off his shoes and climbs around the low izakaya bench to take the seat Hinata is gesturing to. He’s all pressed against Hinata’s right side, and he flushes at the proximity.

 

“How was work today?” Hinata asks him, and Kageyama nods.

 

“It was good. A couple of our players are working on their jump float serves, and they did really well today.”

 

Hinata’s smile widens, if that’s even possible. “Jump float serves? Oh! You should talk to Yamaguchi-kun! I bet he would be willing to come in and help them if you wanted. If that’s allowed by, like, university regulations, or whatever! Or he could tutor them outside of school, if that works better!”

 

Kageyama nods. “Thanks. That actually might be helpful.” Jump float serves aren’t Kageyama’s specialty, and while the other coaches are proficient enough, no one Kageyama knows has as much skill at that particular technique as Yamaguchi.

 

“You should text him! You still have him on LINE, right?”

 

Kageyama nods. “I haven’t deleted anyone, so.”

 

“Do you even know _how_ to delete anyone?”

 

Kageyama blushes. “Dumbass, I know how—”

 

“Um, hello,” a girl around their age says from across the table. One of Hinata’s coworkers. “Hinata-san, you didn’t introduce us!” She’s pretty and her nails have these clusters of little pink gemstones on them, and she’s looking at Hinata with this sassy expression that says she knows Hinata pretty well, and Kageyama is jealous. Not of the pink fingernail gemstones, obviously. It’s stupid, and he tamps it down immediately, because he’s seen Hinata’s expression gone hazy on kisses and close contact, has been the cause of that expression and has been kissed back just as thoroughly in return, but still. He’s not jealous of some definitely not-there relationship between Hinata and the girl; he’s jealous that she has obviously gotten a few months of Hinata’s life that Kageyama was absent for. She’s been learning Hinata as a friend and coworker, sure, but she’s been learning him nonetheless. And Kageyama—well, he used to be a Hinata _expert._ How much has he missed? How much time has been lost?

 

Kageyama is saved from this particular train of self-effacing thought by Hinata practically jumping out of his seat. “Oh yeah! Everyone, this is Kageyama, the one I told you about that I know from high school! Kageyama, this is everyone!”

 

“Very helpful, dumbass, but can you tell me their names—”

 

“I’m Suzuki Haruhi,” the girl says, and then she turns to Hinata. “And we all know who he is. You talk about him enough,” she says with a smirk around the table, and everyone nods along. Kageyama blushes.

 

The other five people crowded around their table introduce themselves as well, and Kageyama nods at all of them and pulls on his best courteous persona, and even though he’s mostly quiet throughout the rest of dinner, Hinata of course talks enough for the both of them. Even when the others ask Kageyama questions about his family or his time in high school, Hinata is quick to respond for him, and Kageyama is both entirely surprised and entirely _not_ surprised that Hinata answers everything correctly, even if he uses a lot more gestures and sound effects than Kageyama would have.

 

Sitting around laughing and eating fried burdock root and chicken meatballs and gyouza and other traditional izakaya foods is actually pretty fun, even if Kageyama isn’t entirely comfortable around so many people he doesn’t know. Hinata’s cheer radiates into him and calms his nerves, and pretty soon two hours have passed and they’re paying the bill, Kageyama blushing when everyone insists that he not pay anything even though it’s traditional for everyone to split the check evenly.

 

“Come on, let us cover you this once. But next week, you won’t be getting any free passes!” Suzuki-san says, laughing and skipping forward in a display of energy that could rival Hinata’s. Kageyama has realized as the night has progressed that the girl is as loud as Hinata and just as adorable, even if Kageyama only has eyes for the redhead on his right.

 

Suzuki-san turns around in the doorway of the restaurant to shout a _thanks for the meal!_ to the owner. Hinata shouts the same, and the owner waves at both of them with obvious familiarity and affection. Hinata’s grin lights up in real, earnest cheer, and Kageyama can’t look away, not even to offer the traditional thank you to the proprietor of the restaurant. When Suzuki-san turns away from the owner, she catches Kageyama staring at Hinata with what are probably literal heart eyes, and she gives him a knowing smirk. Kageyama half-coughs and looks away.

 

Everyone disperses in the parking lot, Suzuki-san speeding off on her bicycle with earphones in even though it’s illegal (and _still snowy,_ Jesus, what is with all these people who think riding bikes in the snow is a wise decision?), the others piling into cars or trudging off through the snow towards the train station. Hinata lingers next to Kageyama and then suddenly looks up at him with a tongue-between-his-teeth smile.

 

“Come on, let’s go!” Hinata says, grabbing Kageyama’s hand and tugging him forward as he skips along, his face turned up towards the sky to watch his breath puff out in clouds of steam.

 

Kageyama has to walk quickly to keep up with Hinata, making sure their hands stay linked together. He’s sure he’s blushing the entire way home, but Hinata just keeps humming and skipping along a step ahead of him, their hands clasped even though it’s a little awkward with the way they’re walking, Kageyama eternally tugged forward by the ball of energy that is Hinata. They make their way inside Kageyama’s apartment and slip their shoes and coats off, and Hinata grins up at him against as he runs his hands through his orange hair in an attempt to tame it from the mess it’s become inside his hat.

 

“Here,” Kageyama says gruffly after Hinata struggles for a few seconds. He reaches up to run his own fingers through Hinata’s orange tangles, the hair thick and weighty beneath Kageyama’s hands if not quite as smooth as Kageyama’s own. There are little knots and snags that fall away quickly but then there are other sections that just don’t want to lie flat, and Kageyama finds himself chuckling as one sprig of hair on the left side of Hinata’s head sticks up almost straight into the air.

 

“Okay, best I can do,” Kageyama says as he finally gives up, and Hinata is giggling and pulling him down for a kiss right there in the doorway, and Kageyama doesn’t protest because the inside of his chest feels like it’s exploding. In a good way. Like fireworks.

 

God dammit. When did Kageyama get this sappy?

 

Hinata pulls away after a minute and they go into the living room, and Hinata turns on the heating unit while Kageyama flips the switch for the kotatsu. Hinata’s jeans are all wet around his ankles in a way that can’t be comfortable.

 

“You can borrow some sweats if you want,” Kageyama offers, a little awkward. “They’ll be too big, obviously, but—they’ll be more comfortable than your jeans.”

 

Hinata nods, grinning happily. “Okay! But hurry! I want to get under the kotatsu,” he says, bottom lip jutting into a pout, and Kageyama bites his lip in a barely successful attempt to _not_ bite Hinata’s.

 

He changes into a pair of track pants himself and then brings Hinata his oldest, softest pair, which is a little bit small now anyways, the ankles riding a few centimeters too high on Kageyama’s calves. They’ll still be way too long on Hinata, but they’re better than any of his other pants.

 

Hinata changes in the bathroom and comes back looking adorable, the pants rolled down at the waistband and up in the ankles so they _almost_ look like they fit, and Kageyama can’t help tugging Hinata down next to him on the low sofa-bed and tucking both of their legs under the kotatsu, flicking on the TV but then leaning back against the cushions behind them because he really just wants to look at Hinata.

 

Hinata relaxes into the cushions next to him, a soft grin on his face as he rolls onto his side and stretches his legs out diagonally across Kageyama’s underneath the kotatsu.

 

“Hey,” he says, like they haven’t been hanging out together for the past two and a half hours.

 

“Hey,” Kageyama says back, because he feels like they’re only just now seeing each other, too.

 

Hinata’s hand comes up from where it’s resting against his stomach, and Kageyama angles himself in towards Hinata as he intertwines their fingers, the motion so soft it sends butterflies tumbling through Kageyama’s stomach.

 

“I can’t stay too late,” Hinata says. “Work tomorrow, and all.”

 

Kageyama nods. “That’s fine. Thanks for coming over anyways.”

 

Hinata’s phone suddenly lights up where it’s resting on the table (face up again, and Kageyama feels weird that he’s even noticing that). Hinata sits up a little and giggles when he sees whatever’s on the screen, the sound muffled like he’s trying to hide his reaction.

 

“Sorry,” he says, even though Kageyama hasn’t said anything.

 

Kageyama shakes his head. “I don’t mind.” He doesn’t care about the phone at all. He thinks he would be content to just stare at Hinata all night, even if the other were just sitting there playing that new Animal Crossing app or texting his friends or something.

 

Hinata shakes his head. “Sorry, it’s just—Kenma, you know he and I are still friends, and whatever, but—he’s dating Kuroo, right, you know that now, and—”

 

Kageyama cuts him off with a kiss and then pulls back, hoping that was okay. Hinata doesn’t look angry, but Kageyama resolves himself to be less forward next time. Just in case.

 

“Sorry,” Hinata says again, glancing back at the phone and giggling again like he’s just remembered there was something funny even as he looks guilty about not having his full attention on Kageyama. And that—that’s just silly, because Kageyama is happy with whatever Hinata will give him. He doesn’t expect to be the only person in Hinata’s life, and in fact, he doesn’t want that, because he knows Hinata is an extrovert who needs lots of friends all the time, and Kageyama can’t be more than one person, so he’s grateful to anyone who can help give his—his— _whatever Hinata is to him now_ some extra love and attention.

 

Hinata giggles and apologizes again.

 

“It’s beautiful when you laugh,” Kageyama blurts, feeling stupid as soon as he says it.

 

Hinata looks up from where he’s reaching tentatively for his phone. “Wanna see what he sent?” Hinata offers, blushing and glancing at Kageyama, who is still resting on his side against the cushions, practically lying on the floor now.

 

Kageyama shakes his head. “I just want to look at you,” he says, because in the soft glow of the lamp and the TV, curled warm under Kageyama’s kotatsu, Hinata has never looked prettier, and Hinata—

 

Hinata looks like he wants to say something, like he’s suddenly unsure, and Kageyama brushes his thumb across the back of Hinata’s hand. “Thanks for coming tonight,” Hinata says as he unlocks his phone and grins at whatever Kenma has sent, and Kageyama presses his forehead against their intertwined fingers.

 

“Thanks for inviting me,” he says, instead of bringing up whatever weirdness keeps popping back up in their interactions.

 

He doesn’t want to ruin the moment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ heyyy u free tmrrw???

 

 _KageyamaT:_ after work yeah

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ let’s hang out!!!!! ♡＾▽＾♡

 

 _KageyamaT:_ it’s supposed to snow again

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ so??!?!?! if it’s really bad we can just have a sleepover!!!

 

 

Kageyama stares at his phone, heart racing in his chest. Hinata is the one suggesting a potential sleepover to _him,_ so he’s pretty sure there’s no chance that Hinata secretly doesn’t want to stay over. Or have him stay over at Hinata’s, if they’re going to hang out there.

 

But still. He doesn’t want to put Hinata in a situation the other won’t like.

 

His phone buzzes again while he’s thinking about what he should do.

 

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ we can just watch movies n stuff, maybe get a lil drunk

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ but not too drunk, like not as drunk as a couple weeks ago

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ I thought I was gonna die th nex tday

 

 

Kageyama stares at his phone. Actually, hanging out with Hinata for an extended period of time might give him the opportunity to broach the subject of whatever weirdness is going on with Hinata, and, well, there’s the fact that Kageyama actually _does_ just want to hang out with Hinata all night. All the time. Forever.

 

Jesus. He really is a sap.

 

 

 _KageyamaT:_ ok. your place or mine

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ YES!!! I’m so excited! (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)و

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ how about your place? my kotatsu is broken

 

 _KageyamaT:_ what how did you break it

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ volleyball

 

 _KageyamaT:_ …

 _KageyamaT:_ inside your apartment

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ it wasn’t my fault

_KageyamaT:_ it was definately your fault

 _KageyamaT:_ *definitely

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ was not!!!!!!! ( ≧Д≦)

 

 _KageyamaT:_ was someone else there playing with you

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ no

 

 _KageyamaT:_ it was your fault.

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ oh NOW u use some punctuation?!?!

 

 _KageyamaT:_ You use enough for both of us

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ ( •̀ω•́ )σ see if I ever invite myself over to ur house ever again!!!

 

 _KageyamaT:_ see you tomorrow night

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ (/^▽^)/

 

 

“What’s got you looking all smiley?”

 

Kageyama’s head shoots up from where he’s staring at his phone, and he can suddenly feel the presence of a dopey little grin on his face. He drops the expression immediately, trying his best to glare at Mizutani, the other assistant coach.

 

“Nothing,” he growls, glaring until Mizutani holds his hands up in mock surrender and turns away.

 

“Whatever. But never smile in front of the students, please. You looked super creepy,” Mizutani says.

 

Kageyama stalks off to get something from the vending machine down the hall, still kind of fighting the urge to smile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They’re lying under the kotatsu staring at each other instead of at the movie, conversation passing between them so easily that Kageyama feels like he’s back in high school again. But no, this is years later, and they’re adults now, and everything is easy and comfortable.

 

But then it all falls apart.

 

Kageyama is thirsty and he’s been ignoring it, but finally he relents and sits up, muttering something about needing water as he rubs his neck and stretches, and Hinata grins up at him and yawns. It’s an easy trip to the kitchen for two glasses of water, and when Kageyama comes back, Hinata is looking at his phone, a fond grin across his cheeks. Kageyama feels affection well up inside him.

 

But then Hinata looks up and his face goes white, the phone flicked off and dropped face up on the table so quickly that Kageyama wonders what’s wrong. Hinata is staring at him like he’s seen a ghost, and Kageyama feels sympathetic fear flick through him.

 

“What’s wrong?” Kageyama asks, because something must be. Hinata must have just gotten a text about an accident, an injury—something terrible about Natsu or his mom or even Yamaguchi or Kenma. Because there’s no other reason Hinata’s breathing should be coming so suddenly short, his mouth twisting around into some strange grimace.

 

But Hinata shakes his head. “Nothing’s wrong! Sorry, I was just looking at Facebook,” he says. It doesn’t sound like a lie, but the tone still sounds weird, like something is off. Kageyama furrows his brow. Hinata is a social butterfly, and he’s always getting tagged in memes or being sent stupid inside joke-y text messages, and Kageyama thinks it’s cute to watch him laugh at his phone. A lot of times, Hinata shows Kageyama what he’s laughing at, and sometimes Kageyama even thinks that it’s funny, too. It’s a nice little facet of their re-budding friendship-or-whatever, and Kageyama thinks nothing of it.

 

But Hinata is sitting under the kotatsu with wide, nervous eyes, and Kageyama can’t ignore whatever’s going on any longer. He sets down the water and climbs back under the kotatsu. He’s not having this conversation out in the cold.

 

“Why do you keep doing that?” Kageyama says, his voice going gruff the way it used to when he was frustrated with Hinata in high school. Hinata looks like a deer in the headlights.

 

“What are you talking about, Bakayama,” he says, not even really a question but more of a nervous, ineffectual attempt to brush off the conversation. Which means he knows what Kageyama is talking about.

 

He aims for gentle, even though Kageyama is pretty sure he’s never been remotely gentle in his life, except with precise tosses in volleyball games. “You always set your phone down face up, even though it makes it awkward for you when you pick it back up.”

 

Hinata chuckles, and it’s so forced that Kageyama wants to smother the sound and erase from his memory the knowledge that Hinata can even _make_ a sound so empty and terrible. “Do I do that? I didn’t notice,” he says, and Kageyama rolls his eyes.

 

“You’ve tried to set it down facedown like a normal person, like, six times tonight. But then you always go back and change it. You definitely notice.”

 

Hinata looks frozen. Terrified. “A…normal person,” he says, suddenly looking like he’s about to cry. Kageyama is genuinely alarmed, and he reaches up a hand to stroke comfort against Hinata’s cheek but Hinata is shoving backwards, his knees bumping the kotatsu hard as he scrambles out from under it, pushing himself to his feet and looking anywhere but at Kageyama.

 

“Hinata, wait—” Kageyama says, climbing carefully to his feet so as not to startle Hinata, who is standing stock still with his hands clenched in fists, his head hanging low so his chin almost touches his chest.

 

“I’m sorry, Kageyama,” Hinata says, voice small. “I’m sorry, I—I really fucking like you, and I always have, but…I can’t. I need to go now.”

 

Kageyama feels like all the air has been sucked out of his lungs. It’s like his chest is caving in and there is nothing he can do about it, the world spinning around him so fast it makes him dizzy, and he thinks he needs to sit down. Because what Hinata has just said doesn’t sound like a temporary thing. Kageyama knows as soon as he hears the words that this is a breakup, a breakup for people who aren’t even technically dating. Hinata is going to walk out that door and he’s not going to come back, and Kageyama would be selfish and horrible not to let him.

 

“I…I’m sorry,” Hinata says again. “I’m sorry I’m not a ‘normal person’ anymore,” he continues, and Kageyama frowns.

 

“ _Dumbass_ , I didn’t mean it seriously, what are you so—” Kageyama cuts himself off. Being harsh isn’t going to help anything, and snapping at Hinata is just making him feel worse. He takes a breath, lets it out, just the way his mom had always told him to as he’d gotten older and his temper had gotten shorter.

 

Hinata doesn’t look at him as he trudges to the door and pulls on his boots and coat. Kageyama feels as frozen as Hinata had looked five minutes prior, and he stands in the living room staring at the door, Hinata wrapping his scarf (Kageyama’s old scarf) around his neck and tucking his chin down so it protects his round cheeks, and Kageyama feels the ground careening out from under him and does absolutely nothing to stop it. He can’t ask Hinata to stay, because Hinata probably will. And he won’t want to.

 

Nothing would be worse than that.

 

Before he leaves, Hinata does manage to look back up at Kageyama, at least. Their eyes meet and Kageyama feels his heart break at the look of devastation on Hinata’s face. Hinata offers a watery smile and then a stupid little wave, and it reminds Kageyama so much of the way they’d said goodbye the last time they had seen each other before their reunion a couple of weeks ago, Hinata with tears in his eyes even though Kenma had been at his side, and Kageyama looking lamely at his old partner and doing nothing to stop him slipping away.

 

Preemptive regret floods his chest, because Kageyama knows he’s not going to stop Hinata this time either.

 

“I’m sorry,” Hinata says again. “Thank you for—everything. Always.”

 

Kageyama stares at the door long after Hinata is gone, and then he walks to his bedroom and falls onto his futon. Not for the first time, he kicks himself for being a coward when it comes to Hinata.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 _KageyamaT:_ hey can I ask you something important

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ If it’s coming from you, I guarantee it’s not important.

 

 _KageyamaT:_ did something happen to Hinata

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ Why are you asking me that?

 

 _KageyamaT:_ you’re dating Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi is friends with Hinata

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ Sounds like you should be asking Yamaguchi, then.

 

 _KageyamaT:_ stop being a dick. it would be weird to randomly text Yamaguchi to ask if something happened to Hinata

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ It’s weird to randomly text me to ask if something happened to Hinata.

 

 _KageyamaT:_ what happened to Hinata

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ It’s not my business. Ask someone else.

 

 _KageyamaT:_ who should I ask

 _KageyamaT:_ if you know what happened, why won’t you tell me

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ Obviously you should ask Hinata. I don’t really know what happened.

 

 _KageyamaT:_ but something did happen.

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ Talk to Hinata about it and leave me alone. I would very much like to get back to listening to music without the interruption of your text notifications.

 

 _KageyamaT:_ you could mute LINE you know

 

_Read 23:04_

 

 

Tsukishima doesn’t message back again, and Kageyama doesn’t expect him to. Kageyama vaguely considers texting Hinata to make sure the other had made it home okay after his abrupt departure, but he’s sure Hinata doesn’t want to hear from him. It’s only been an hour since he left, after all. Maybe they can fix things tomorrow—Kageyama is tempted to go over to Hinata’s house with a present like a new volleyball or new tennis shoes or something, but he doesn’t really think that would help. If anything, it seems like pushing this will just make things hurt more.

 

His salvation comes two days later in the form of an angel at the supermarket.

 

Okay, not really. But it does happen at the supermarket, and Yamaguchi _is_ basically an angel, so Kageyama figures this assessment is not entirely unreasonable.

 

“Kageyama? It’s been so long!” Yamaguchi says from across one of the produce stands. Kageyama shoves the couple of bell peppers he’s holding into his basket and nods.

 

“Yamaguchi. How is Tsukishima doing?”

 

Yamaguchi’s grin absolutely _lights up_ at the mention of Tsukishima, to the point that Kageyama kind of wants to throw up a little. How had he ever not known those two were absolutely fucking _gone_ for each other?

 

“Tsukki is doing great! He’s really happy to be doing a Master’s, and we still get to live up here where we want so we’re really happy. We get to see Akiteru and Saeko-san all the time, which means we see Tanaka and Nishinoya-senpai too, and even Asahi-san sometimes when he isn’t at home suffering through writer’s block or trying to make deadlines!”

 

Kageyama’s eyes widen at the onslaught of information. _Has everyone I know from high school been hanging out without me all this time?_ He shuts down the thought and nods at Yamaguchi’s smiling face.

 

“I’m sure Tsukishima loves having that much social interaction all the time,” he deadpans, and Yamaguchi laughs. He really is unusually cute, and Kageyama thinks not for the first time that he can see why this guy was the one to somehow win Tsukishima Kei’s cold, dead heart. Tsukishima is lucky as hell, that’s for sure.

 

“Eh, Tsukki puts up with it for me. He knows I like having all those people around some of the time. Not always, though. At the end of the day, Tsukki is my best friend, and there’s no one else I’d want with me while I play my Nintendo Switch and he puts his headphones on and ignores me in favor of his _precious music_.” Yamaguchi’s smile turns a little mean at the end there, and Kageyama is reminded that, oh yeah, Yamaguchi likes the absolute _asshole_ that is Tsukishima Kei because Yamaguchi is secretly a sassy brat too. They really are made for each other, those two. The perfect partners in crime.

 

There’s a beat of companionable silence before Kageyama takes a breath and shatters the good mood in a single blow. “Yamaguchi, did something happen to Hinata?”

 

Yamaguchi freezes, the halt in motion so sudden and total that it looks almost violent. “What?” he asks, and—oh yeah, there’s the nervous Yamaguchi that Kageyama remembers from the first few times Yamaguchi had been subbed in as their pinch server.

 

Kageyama sighs. “I didn’t mean to scare you or something. Stop looking like that,” he commands, harsher than he intended. Yamaguchi sighs, the unnatural tension easing out of his muscles so that he’s standing with a little hunch in his shoulders that looks resigned and kind of sad.

 

“Listen, Kageyama—I know you were sort of seeing him. And that it ended kind of suddenly. But I think…”

 

“You think I should let this go,” Kageyama says, huffing a breath out in a way that makes his hair go puffing up away from his cheeks.

 

Yamaguchi looks sharp all of sudden. His face is set, determined. “Actually, that wasn’t what I was going to say. I don’t think you should let it go at all. I think you’re exactly what Hinata needs, and you’re what he’s always wanted. _Always._ ”

 

Kageyama can’t even pretend his heart isn’t leaping in his chest at Yamaguchi’s words. Yamaguchi catches Kageyama’s blush and grins a little, the expression sly but not callous. “Yeah, I mean it when I say _always._ I’ve known he was pining for you since before _he_ knew he was pining for you. And Hinata’s pretty quick on the uptake with this kind of thing. It didn’t take him long to figure it out.”

 

“What about Kenma?” Kageyama can’t help but ask, not jealous but intrigued.

 

Yamaguchi smiles. “I’ll let him explain that one to you, but I _will_ say you should be grateful for Kenma. For Hinata’s sake. That boy has kept Hinata sane many times since you and Hinata fell out of touch.”

 

Kageyama nods. The air has turned serious again, and he’s determined to get answers. “So what happened, then? If it wasn’t something with Kenma,” he says. He’s never suspected it was something with Kenma, really, and now he’s sure his intuition was correct.

 

Yamaguchi shakes his head, albeit sadly. Maybe even regretfully. “Anyways, what I was going to say back at the very beginning of this conversation was that you should talk to Hinata about it.”

 

“I’ve tried.”

 

“I _know_. But you might have to give him time. More time than you want to.”

 

Kageyama nods. “I can wait. I just wish he could tell me that, though. I won’t pressure him into anything he doesn’t want. He’ll just say yes because he’s somehow lost the ability to stand up for himself, and it’s annoying as _hell._ It’s more annoying than when he was always running around spewing his bullshit ideas about volleyball all over everyone,” Kageyama says, recognizing the frustration creeping into his voice as fond, affectionate.

 

Yamaguchi is obviously picking up on that, too. He’s grinning in this weird, sort of sad way, and Kageyama halts his uncharacteristically long rant to meet Yamaguchi’s eyes.

 

Yamaguchi sighs. “So you have noticed, then,” he says, and whatever Kageyama was expecting, it certainly wasn’t that. He isn’t even totally sure what Yamaguchi is implying.

 

“What?”

 

Yamaguchi looks down at the tiled floor, his hands fidgeting with the handle of his grocery basket. “Hinata is…really bad at saying no now,” he says, and Kageyama nods, because yeah, that’s exactly it.

 

Yamaguchi sighs again, running a hand through his eternally cowlick-ed hair. “Kageyama, it’s not my place to talk about this with you. But if there’s one thing I can say, it’s that you need to talk to him. When he’s ready for it. Because someone…something did happen, and if you’re interested in him, or even just concerned as an old friend, you need to know about it. But…it’s just not my story to tell.”

 

Kageyama is frustrated and now even more curious, but he doesn’t resent Yamaguchi for protecting Hinata’s confidence, and he’s not going to push. But there is one thing Yamaguchi has said that triggers some sort of heartbreaking idea that Kageyama just has to confirm. “Yamaguchi, you said ‘someone’. Does that mean…”

 

Yamaguchi meets his eyes, and his gaze is clouded with some unfathomable emotion that Kageyama can’t place. “Yeah,” he says. “Whatever you’re thinking, you’re probably right, Kageyama-kun,” he says, the honorific tagged on in a show of affection that Kageyama is surprised to find he appreciates.

 

He looks at Yamaguchi for a long few seconds before he sighs and nods. “Thanks, Yamaguchi,” he says as they turn to go their separate ways. “Do you think…”

 

Yamaguchi tilts his head. “What?”

 

“Could you…tell Hinata? That I want to talk to him when he’s ready?”

 

Yamaguchi looks pensive, and Kageyama can see the gears turning in a way that’s weirdly reminiscent of Tsukishima. Yamaguchi must have picked up the mannerism from him.

 

Finally, Yamaguchi bites his lip and nods. “Normally I would say that it should just come from you, but…Hinata can be kind of stubborn still. Especially when he’s afraid. He’s really good at avoiding things, including his own emotions. So…I’ll mention it. That I think he should give you a chance.”

 

Kageyama’s heart leaps. “You think he should give me a chance?”

 

Yamaguchi smiles like he has a secret and ducks his head a little. “We should all go for coffee once you work things out with Hinata. Tsukki will complain about it, but he’ll be secretly glad. Don’t tell him I said that, though.” Yamaguchi offers one last fragile smile, and then he’s off towards the checkout lines, and Kageyama finishes collecting the produce he needs in a daze. He’s got a lot to think about.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday and Monday pass, and Kageyama still doesn’t hear from Hinata. Finally, he realizes that maybe he’s being kind of obtuse about the whole thing. It’s not like Yamaguchi had said he would tell Hinata to contact him first, just that he would encourage Hinata to listen to what Kageyama had to say.

 

So maybe Kageyama should take some initiative.

 

When he starts trying to compose the message, though, he runs into a problem. He’s not the best with words, and he’s not sure how to sound genuine and not just demanding in a LINE message that Hinata could get a notification for and then not even read.

 

He tries searching for some help online, but he’s not really sure what to type in the search bar. _How to tell someone you want to talk to them_ seems…well, just really stupid. Any sort of qualifications he could put on it, like _how to tell someone you want to talk to them when they’re mad at you and keeping something from you and you really want to know what it is because you might have feelings and you don’t really know what feelings are_ would be fruitless and pathetic.

 

Kageyama sighs and texts Tsukishima.

 

 

 _KageyamaT:_ when Yamaguchi is mad at you and refusing to talk to you, how do you get him to talk

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ Please stop texting me for relationship advice. It’s creepy.

 

 _KageyamaT:_ I tlaked to Yamaguchi

 _KageyamaT:_ talked

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ Are you sure you even speak Japanese? How is your typing consistently this bad?

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ And I know you talked to Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi tells me everything.

 

 

Kageyama thinks about saying something about how it’s cute that Tsukishima actually listens, considering the blond definitely _doesn’t_ listen to anyone else, but he decides against it because he actually needs advice.

 

 

 _KageyamaT:_ so what would you do if he stopped telling you everything. like if he refused to tell you something

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ That doesn’t happen. And if it did, why would I tell you?

 

 _KageyamaT:_ liar

 _KageyamaT:_ I know there was stuff he kept from you in high school

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ We were 17 and immature. Now we are adults, so we just talk. A novel concept for you, I’m sure. Go away; I’m trying to write an essay.

 

 _KageyamaT:_ but if Yamaguchi did try to hide something from you what would you do

 

 

Tsukishima takes a long, long time to respond. So long that Kageyama has given up and gone back to his paperwork, his phone lying forgotten on the desk.

 

When he leaves work an hour and a half later, he has one new message from Tsukishima.

 

 

 _Tsukishima Kei:_ I tell him he’s my best friend, and nothing will ever change that.

 

 

Kageyama has to swallow hard around the emotion welling up in his throat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 _KageyamaT:_ dumbass, you don’t have to hide stuff from me. I’m still going to like you

 

_Read 19:32_

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two days later, there’s a knock at Kageyama’s door. It’s a Wednesday night, and Kageyama is moping around thinking about Hinata at the izakaya eating potato cheese balls and fried burdock root and chicken meatballs. He pulls his head off his pillow and checks to make sure he’s decent—sweats and a ripped up old sweatshirt aren’t the classiest clothes to open the door in, but he doesn’t really care and maybe it’s his mom or something, so he pads over to the entrance and turns the lock, pulling open the door.

 

It’s Hinata. He’s all bundled up again, and his cheeks are red from the cold, but Kageyama can see a hint of the bright haze that clouds Hinata’s eyes when he’s been drinking, and Kageyama feels his heart leap and also fall at the same time.

 

“Hey,” Hinata says, “Can I come in?”

 

And—well, as much as Kageyama isn’t going to have this conversation with Hinata drunk or even tipsy, he’s not going to make him stand outside in the cold either.

 

“Yeah,” Kageyama mutters, ducking his head and stepping back from the doorway. Hinata comes inside and starts divesting himself of his outerwear, and Kageyama locks the door and turns away to go turn on the kotatsu. After a few minutes, Hinata appears in the doorway, his feet still in socks and his jeans a little wet around the bottoms again. Kageyama sighs and stands up.

 

“Hold on, I’ll get you something more comfortable. You really need to learn to tuck your jeans into your boots.” _Dumbass_ , he says in his head. But it somehow feels like it would be wrong to say it aloud.

 

Hinata waits patiently, and Kageyama brings him the same track pants from last Wednesday night and his old Karasuno volleyball jacket. He had found it in the back of his closet while doing laundry on Monday, and he tells himself he’s only giving it to Hinata because it will fit him better, not because he wants to see Hinata’s tiny frame wrapped in their high school team sportswear as, like, a creepy throwback to Hinata in high school.

 

Hinata doesn’t comment on it when he finishes changing, but Kageyama can’t stop the blush from creeping up his cheeks at the sight.

 

“It’s warmer under the kotatsu,” Kageyama says when Hinata just keeps standing next to the table awkwardly, and Hinata seems to sort of snap out of his daze as he crawls underneath. He’s careful not to touch Kageyama and Kageyama doesn’t push it, so they end up sitting awkwardly side by side, afraid to move because if a kotatsu is good for anything, it’s making its users play accidental footsie while shifting around beneath its cozy warmth.

 

Finally, Hinata sighs. When he looks over at Kageyama, there’s only clarity in his eyes, all traces of earlier daze gone from Hinata’s expression.

 

Still. “Did you come from the izakaya?” Kageyama asks. Hinata nods. “And were you drinking?”

 

Hinata’s cheeks turn pink. “A little. But not really. I had one beer and then decided I should come over here.”

 

Kageyama bites his lip, conflicted. Hinata is a lightweight, but he looks sober and one beer isn’t enough to greatly impair his judgment, even if it had apparently given him the courage he’d needed to come over here.

 

“We don’t have to talk right now,” Kageyama finally says, his concern for Hinata’s state of mind outweighing his desire to hear the story he’s pretty sure he’s going to be told.

 

Hinata shrugs. “I’m not drunk. But…yeah, maybe you’re right. I wouldn’t have come over here if I hadn’t been drinking. So maybe this isn’t really what I want.”

 

Kageyama nods. “You can stay, though. It’s cold out, and dark. I’ll go in the other room and you can just leave whenever you want. I don’t care.”

 

Hinata’s eyes flick to rest on his phone. “Do you think…we could just sit here? And, like, play around on our phones, or whatever? Just…do our own separate things, but together?”

 

Kageyama nods, scowling affectionately. “Dumbass, of course that’s fine. I just said I’ll even go in the other room if you want.”

 

“But I don’t want you to,” Hinata says, suddenly a little more demanding, fired up. He reminds Kageyama of the Hinata from high school, who wasn’t afraid to call him out on all his shit.

 

“Fine, I won’t then. I’ll sit right here and ignore the shit out of you,” Kageyama says, letting all his affection pour out in the fond cadence of his gruff voice. Kageyama can tell that Hinata can hear it because Hinata blushes.

 

“Okay,” Hinata says.

 

“Okay,” Kageyama spits back.

 

They don’t talk to each other for an entire hour of companionable silence, and then Hinata stands to leave and Kageyama shows him out.

 

Neither one of them says anything when Hinata takes Kageyama’s old Karasuno jacket with him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They finally talk on Friday night after work. They’re snuggled under the kotatsu again, Hinata’s hair glowing fiery gold in the soft light of the living room, and Kageyama feels like his blood has turned thick and syrupy-sweet on affection, Hinata’s grin all white and beautiful and his legs pressed carefully against Kageyama’s. There’s no reason the situation should feel as intimate as it does, but Kageyama’s heart swells when he sees the vulnerability in Hinata’s eyes, and he takes Hinata’s hand and lets their fingers tangle and twine, both of them partly focused on that as Hinata finally tells his story.

 

“I’m sorry,” he starts, and Kageyama isn’t surprised. Hinata’s been overly apologetic since they reconnected, but Kageyama suspects he now knows why. “I don’t know if I can…if I can really be in a relationship,” he continues.

 

Kageyama holds his gaze steady on Hinata’s face, but Hinata is studying their joined hands, refusing to meet his gaze.

 

“We don’t have to talk about this,” Kageyama offers. He would be content to just sit in silence all night, their fingers playing at little taps and caresses on each other’s hands, their legs touching under the warm kotatsu.

 

Hinata sighs. “No, I should give you an explanation. It’s just…I was in a really bad relationship. After Kenma. After you and I fell out of touch. It wasn’t long, and I mean—he didn’t hit me or anything! There was never any real abuse. It was just toxic.”

 

Kageyama is skeptical, but he doesn’t say anything. He lets Hinata go on.

 

“So anyways, we met because we were both waiting tables to help pay for school, and we just got along right away. Laughed at each other’s jokes and stuff. Which I hate to admit, because…whatever. It doesn’t matter. I fucking _hate_ him now, but it doesn’t matter. I’m trying to let go, because I don’t want him having that over me. That hatred, I mean. I don’t want to think about him at all, but…I can’t help it. I just get so _scared._ ” Hinata looks suddenly worried, and Kageyama gives his hand a squeeze.

 

Hinata goes on. “He wanted me to hang out with him all the time, like right away, once we admitted that we liked each other. I was living with Kenma and Kuroo at that point, which might be weird, but, like I said, Kenma and Kuroo and I are all really good friends. So it really wasn’t weird. Or at least I didn’t think so.

 

“But anyways, the guy—his name was Takuya—didn’t really like that I lived with Kenma. He always asked all these questions about why we were all living like that when I was Kenma’s ex, and—and he always framed it like he was concerned about me. Saying stuff like ‘I just don’t want you feeling hurt by the situation’, and whatever. Even though I genuinely wasn’t. But he said it enough times that I just started to believe him. That I should be hurt, and that Kenma and Kuroo weren’t being fair to me. Even though it had been my idea for all of us to move in together. I mean, it had been two years since Kenma and I had even dated, and Kenma and I had dated for like two months. So it just…” Hinata cuts off, takes a breath. Kageyama stays quiet.

 

“Anyways, he always wanted me over at his apartment, and so I went. It was nice because he didn’t have any roommates, so it just seemed automatic that we would hang out there. And we went to the same school and worked at the same place, so we basically started doing everything together. I was practically living with him after just a couple of weeks, but I liked him, so I didn’t see anything wrong.

 

“Aside from Kenma, I hadn’t been in a relationship, so I thought it was normal when he started some arguments over things that I thought were no big deal, like whether I was flirting with customers or why I wanted to go to Kenma and Kuroo’s Halloween party when they were still treating me badly. Which they weren’t. But I—I was so fucking _dumb_ that I didn’t even realize that it was Takuya who was—and then he started jokingly hitting my phone out of my hands every time I would look at it, and he constantly had to see what I was doing with it to make sure I wasn’t sending flirtatious selfies or having conversations with ‘people who were hurting me’, which, in his opinion, was literally all of my friends. Even Yamaguchi. Even _Yachi._ ”

 

Hinata stifles a sob, and Kageyama feels like he’s going to be sick. He breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth, and Hinata ducks his head into their joined hands and even though it makes his words come out all muffled, Kageyama doesn’t ask him to raise his head.

 

“He got so angry one time when I accidentally fell asleep without saying goodnight. Not like hitting me, or anything—like I said, he never hit me—but just wouldn’t talk to me in the morning, and wouldn’t tell me why he was angry, just kept saying I should know what I had done. And when I genuinely didn’t, it took him like three hours of the silent treatment before he finally told me it was because I was so rude and inconsiderate for just falling asleep. Which—it was complicated because, like, I was exhausted and he had said he wanted me to relax so he gave me a blowjob which I honestly didn’t even really care about, like I didn’t _not_ want to do it but I didn’t particularly want to do it either, and I don’t know, afterwards I offered to return the favor or something and he said no so of course I respected that, and I fell asleep but I guess—I just thought he must be right, that I was being inconsiderate about everything.

 

“Takuya had been cheated on a few times, and so all his behavior—the jealousy and the checking my phone all the time and stuff—I understood that he was just paranoid that I was going to cheat. And I thought that by appeasing him, by letting him check my phone and stuff, that he would see I wasn’t doing anything to hurt him and it would calm him down, reassure him. But…I think it just made it worse. He asked why I had saved pictures of me with Kenma, and he made me delete them. He wouldn’t let me see any of my friends because he was convinced they were only friends with me because I was hot and they wanted to fuck me. He especially hated it when I mentioned you a few times because he thought you were in love with me and that it was unfair of me to lead you on. Which was so _stupid_ of me to fall for, because obviously you’re not in love with me and you and I weren’t even _talking_ at that point, so what even did you have to do with anything?”

 

Hinata’s words are coming in a heated rush, but Kageyama can feel the tension dying out. The story is almost over, and Hinata’s energy is winding down.

 

“Anyway, he made me doubt my interpretation of reality so much that I ended up being forced to quit my job because he thought our manager was flirting with me. And in those last few weeks, I was terrible at my job anyways, because if I stayed even five minutes late to help cover another worker or something, Takuya would say it was clear my priorities weren’t with him and that I was just being inconsiderate again because I didn’t have the experience to know what’s respectful in a relationship and what’s not.

 

“Eventually one night, I managed to convince him I should be allowed to go hang out with Kenma and Kuroo and Bokuto and Akaashi. He wasn’t too happy, but it had been nearly three months since I had seen them, even though I technically was still paying for a room at Kenma and Kuroo’s, so he said I could go. I didn’t even get to stay that long, because I knew I had to get home at the exact time I had agreed to or else Takuya would refuse to speak to me and then would lecture me and tell me repeatedly to shut up if I tried to explain my side of things. My side didn’t matter. It didn’t exist. Only his interpretation was right, and I…I thought I had legitimately gone crazy. I couldn’t trust myself at all, because he made me so uncertain of what was real.

 

“So anyways, I went to Kenma and Kuroo’s, and we all ended up playing this stupid videogame, and—I just laughed so hard, so hard I was crying, and something in me broke. I realized I loved hanging out with my friends, and I had way more fun with them than I did with my boyfriend, and—and the next morning, I somehow managed to break up with him. I just kept thinking about the stupid videogame, and I thought about Yamaguchi and my family and—and I thought about _you_ , and what you would say if you knew I was in an unhealthy relationship, and—and I said I thought I should move back up north, and that I wanted to break up, and—well, he was furious. He destroyed all of the pictures of us, like he punched through the frames and stuff. There was glass all over the bed. And he took a knife to this bear I had gotten him, ripped it open while I was gathering my stuff. He was so angry, but…but somehow I left. And went back to Kenma and Kuroo’s. They were surprised, but they didn’t say anything really. And then eventually I told them the whole story, and they were mostly just angry at themselves for not realizing what was going on.”

 

Kageyama is a little overwhelmed from all the information he’s been given, but one little recurring thing Hinata had said stays with him, urging him to make sure he’s hearing Hinata right.

 

“What was going on…” Kageyama muses, looking at Hinata pointedly. “Hinata, what do _you_ think was going on?”

 

Hinata swallows and looks up at Kageyama, his eyes swollen with tears. He looks shy. “I was stupid. I got into an unhealthy relationship. It was my fault.”

 

And yep. There it is. The thing that makes Kageyama’s eyes slam shut, his jaw clenching against the explosion of anger in his chest. But he’s not angry at Hinata—he’s angry at himself, and at all their friends, and at Takuya, and at the whole world. He’s angry that Hinata somehow, after all of this, still believes he’s at fault for something that was not his fault at all.

 

Kageyama wants to call him out on it, to tell him he’s wrong, but that feels so much like what Takuya had done, twisting Hinata’s interpretations of things to the point that Hinata didn’t recognize reality anymore. The guy must have been a master of gaslighting, Kageyama thinks, and he squeezes Hinata’s hands hard.

 

“Hinata, he sounds like an abusive asshole,” Kageyama says, finally deciding that giving Hinata that frame to work with is okay even if half-negates Hinata’s previous statement.

 

“He didn’t hit me—”

 

“He didn’t have to,” Kageyama says. “People can still be abusive without hitting you.”

 

Hinata stares at Kageyama, a little bit of fire returning to his gaze. “You don’t even know what happened aside from what I’ve just told you, you _weren’t there—_ ” Hinata cuts off with a strangled sob, finally devolving from angry tears into complete and utter sobs, and Kageyama stares at him in shock for a minutes before he moves on automatic to pull Hinata into his arms in a clumsy but firm hug.

 

“I fucking loved you. I fucking loved you in high school and I was too much of a coward to say anything, because I thought it would all work out, but then it just didn’t and I really liked Kenma, and that was good, but then—but then I _had sex with Takuya and I fucking hate him._ I _hate_ it, having to wake up every day knowing I had sex with him when I didn’t even always want to, and I was just waiting for it to be _over_ , and I thought—I thought, _this is my life, this is what I deserve because I was too fucking stupid to just tell Kageyama._ ”

 

“Fuck, no, don’t—it’s okay, Hinata, fuck, _Shouyou—_ ”

 

“I’m so sorry. I’m so _sorry,_ ” Hinata is gasping and sobbing, and Kageyama—Kageyama just waits. He waits, and he strokes his hand down Hinata’s back, and he lets Hinata cry himself out because Hinata probably needs a little bit of catharsis at this point, and if Kageyama can be his rock, then that’s exactly what he’ll be.

 

“It wasn’t your fault,” Kageyama eventually whispers. “And people don’t usually realize they’re being abused until after it’s over.”

 

Hinata breathes out a wet, choking sigh. “I just…I sometimes wished he would hit me. So I would have an excuse to leave. But he didn’t, and no one ever told me his behavior was, like, not okay, so I just thought…this is how relationships are supposed to work. And I let him destroy my head, and—and now I’m just so _fragile_ and that’s why…I can’t be in a relationship with you. I’m afraid this will haunt me forever, and we’ll never be what we could have been. If we had just started this in high school and never had to deal with all this bullshit.”

 

Kageyama tightens his hold, runs a hand through Hinata’s hair. “You don’t have to be in a relationship with me. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. But you’re a dumbass if you think this is permanently ruined. I’ve waited for you for eight years now, Hinata. I’m not going to up and change my mind.”

 

Hinata freezes. “I—it’s been a whole year since that relationship ended, and I’m still this messed up over it. I—what if I never get better?”

 

Kageyama shrugs. “Whatever. You can just hang out here whenever you want and we can ignore each other more. I don’t really care.”

 

Hinata gapes.

 

“But you have to tell me. What’s the deal with the phone thing?”

 

Hinata looks at where his phone is resting face up on the table and actually laughs. It’s self-deprecating but not forced, and Kageyama watches him trace his finger around the edge of the device. “He used to get mad that I kept my phone face down. Said only people who are hiding something keep their phones down like that. It was because one time, he convinced me that I had woken him up in the night because I was texting someone, even though I checked and the last message I had sent was to my mom like four days earlier. And I had no memory of waking up at all, let alone sending a text message. He convinced me that I must have deleted it, and I was lying, and I should keep my phone face up all the time. And I…I believed him. I had no memory of anything except sleeping, and yet…he convinced me.”

 

Kageyama bites his lip to keep from screaming his rage on Hinata’s behalf. Takuya is lucky he lives all the way in Tokyo, Kageyama thinks. “So you thought you were crazy.”

 

Hinata nods. “Yeah. I still…I still sometimes doubt myself. My idea of reality. And I still do the phone thing, and stuff.”

 

Kageyama sighs. “I don’t care what you do on your phone. It’s your phone. You’re not interested in anyone but me, so who cares.”

 

Hinata kind of laughs, the sound warm on disbelief. “Oh really? I’m not interested in anyone but you?”

 

Kageyama shrugs. “You taught me to stop being jealous and insecure a long time ago. In high school. I’m glad you still talk to Kenma and Kuroo, and that you’re friends with Yamaguchi and Tsukishima.”

 

Hinata makes a face. “I’m not friends with Tsukishima.”

 

“Yeah, you are,” Kageyama smirks. Then his heart feels like it’s dropping to his feet. “Sorry, I didn’t—I didn’t mean to imply that you’re wrong. Like, that your interpretation of reality is wrong. It isn’t.”

 

Hinata shakes his head, grinning. “No, it’s okay when you do it. I know you’re doing it to tease me, because you like me. It’s fine for you to tell me I’m wrong. It’s just…I really don’t like the phrase ‘I don’t believe you’. So…maybe you could try to avoid that one?”

 

Kageyama nods. “I always believe you. I just think you’re a dumbass sometimes,” he says, hoping his teasing affection comes across. He’s a little worried just because people always tell him he has such a scary face, but as always, Hinata sees through it.

 

Hinata grins. “Who are you calling dumbass, _Bakayama_.”

 

Things quickly devolve into a pillow fight from there. And then they play volleyball in the living room, and they almost break Kageyama’s kotatsu, and the television too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ wanna hang out after izakaya on wed????

 

 _KageyamaT:_ sure. your place or mine?

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ mine!!! I got my kotatsu fixed and I also got a better lil sofa couch for it! so we’ll be ULTRA COMFY!!!!!!

 

 _KageyamaT:_ it’s a date

 _KageyamaT:_ I mean

 _KageyamaT:_ sorry, didn’t mean it like that

 _KageyamaT:_ we can just hang out

 _KageyamaT:_ I promise I’ll ignore you

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ yeah, it is!!!

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ oops, wait, did you not want it to be a date???

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ sorry, now I’m confused!!!!! δ(´д｀; )

 

 _KageyamaT:_ do you want it to be a date

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ …yes.

 

 _KageyamaT:_  then it’s a date.

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و

 

 _KageyamaT:_  whats that one for

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ because u still wanna date me even though I’m a mess and totally crazy!!!!

 

 _KageyamaT:_ I told you I’ll always wanna date you

 _KageyamaT:_ and it’s not like either of those things are even remotely new

 

 _ShouyouShouyou:_ WHY R U SO MEAN TO ME?????!!!!!

 

 

They hang out on Wednesday.

 

There’s a lot of making out.

 

Hinata says they’re not dating.

 

Kageyama believes him, and Hinata is happy, and kisses him again.

 


End file.
